In his first start since the first game of the season, Francisco Garcia came out hot and made his case to the coaches for why he should be the starting small forward going forward. Garcia buried two of his four three point attempts in the first, which really helped to space the floor for his teammates. Baron Davis turned back the clock on the Kings, scoring a quick eight points to pace the Clippers. Blake Griffin had an effective quarter, even stepping out and burying a three pointer and leading his team with four early rebounds. Tyreke Evans led the Kings with seven first quarter points, but after a decent start to the game, they trailed by seven.

Speedy Pooh Jeter got the Kings moving to start the second, quickly closing the Clippers’ gap. The Clippers responded by hitting open three point shots, which helped push the lead to nine on numerous occasions and even as high as 13. Rookie Al-Faroq Aminu made a nice impact in the game, dropping five of his 11 first half points in the second quarter against the Kings. Beno Udrih drilled a three in the closing seconds of the second to cut the lead to nine. The Clippers finished the half with four guys in double figures and another player two points away from joining them.

The Kings stalked the Clippers in the third, slowly nipping at their heals until the 3:48 mark of the third, when they overtook them on a huge three point shot by Francisco Garcia. Tyreke Evans led the Kings with 10 big third quarter points. Eric Gordon answered with 11 points for the Clippers as the teams went to the fourth tied.

The Clippers quickly jumped out to a seven point lead in the fourth on the inspired play of Ike Diogu and Eric Gordon. Omri Casspi hit two big shots to keep the Kings close, but the Clippers pushed the lead to nine with a little over four minutes to play. The Kings hung around, using a three by Garcia and a thunderous dunk by Tyreke Evans to cut the Clippers’ lead to four with 1:40 left. Evans drained a three from the top of the key to cut the Clippers lead to one, but Eric Gordan hit a spectacular lay-in to push the lead back to three with just over a minute to play.

After a pair of made free throws by Carl Landry, the Kings cut the lead back to one with 51.8 seconds to play. Tyreke Evans took on the entire Clippers defense and came up empty. The Evans miss led to a Blake Griffin break away dunk to push the Clipper lead back to three points with 5.9 seconds left. With 1.9 on the game clock, Tyreke Evans was fouled shooting a three point shot by Ryan Gomes. After hitting the first two free throws to cut the lead to one, he missed the third. Cousins got the rebound, but was dragged to the floor by Blake Griffin on the put-back. The officials missed it. Evans tried a last ditch toss-in, but missed and the Kings lost a heart breaker by one point.

Player of the Game: Eric Gordon. The third year guard out of Indiana was on fire all night long. He scored 31 points on 12 of 19 shooting and dropped in six of his seven three point attempts. Gordon also added six rebounds and four assists to help his club steal the one point victory.

The Difference Maker: Tyreke Evans. Evans has struggled to find his game this season, but tonight he was spectacular. He scored 32 points on 11 of 24 shooting, hit three of six from behind the three point line and kicked in another seven points from the free throw stripe. Unfortunately, Evans missed the free throw that would have tied the game with 1.9 seconds left and the tip in as time expired that would have won it.

About: James Ham

James Ham is the senior editor of Cowbell Kingdom, providing extensive Kings coverage through news analysis, in-depth interviews with players and staff and daily coverage of breaking news since 2010. Along with providing original content for the site, including the Cowbell Kingdom Podcast and his weekly Sunday Musings column, James also contributes to ESPN.com and is one of the producers behind the award-winning, independent documentary film "Small Market, Big Heart".

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Founded in 2009, Cowbell Kingdom is a member of the ESPN TrueHoop Network. Its goal is to provide frontline, on-the-ground coverage of the Kings that leads to interesting and thought-provoking discussion amongst readers.